Pope Francis, the hermeneutic of conspiracy and the ‘Three F’s’

Author: Peter Bannister

How many conspiracy theories about Pope Francis have you heard? It’s likely that you have come across at least one, and if your natural reaction was to dismiss it out of hand, perhaps you’ve missed a trick. The author of a new book on the Pope’s ‘not-so-cultured despisers’ argues that such narratives have a sociological significance and require our attention if we are to understand the phenomenon of Pope Francis. (...)

First type ‘Pope Francis False Prophet’ into an internet video search engine. Sort results by number of views. You may well be surprised to discover the size of the audience for conspiratorial narratives concerning Jorge Mario Bergoglio. (...)

Profiting From a False Prophet? The Strange Case of Kelly Bowring

By Tim Stuart

Dr. Kelly Bowring

Kelly Bowring lately of Cummins, Georgia, continues to launch marketing spiels for his books from his website. He is focused on writing about end times prophecy and how it relates to the Catholic Church. His latest attempt to sell his books was issued just a few days ago. Last year he told us that it was “plausible” that Pope Francis was the false prophet of the antichrist, based on the often ludicrous “prophecies” of one calling herself “Maria Divine Mercy” or, simply MDM.

Dr. Bowring wants us to take him seriously and often points out his academic credentials as well as his “mandatum” to teach theology. There is no question of his academic background, he is well-schooled and holds a doctorate in theology.

Concerning ‘Maria Divine Mercy’, Pope Francis, The False Prophet – and Dr. Kelly Bowring

By David Moorcroft.

In his article ‘Concerning “Maria Divine Mercy”, Pope Francis and the False

Dr Kelly Bowring

Prophet’, Dr Kelly Bowring represents himself as ‘a Catholic theologian and author of best-selling books such as “The Secrets, Chastisement, and Triumph” and “The Great Battle Has Begun”. So we have a Catholic theologian who rakes in the shekels and puts ‘Dr’ in front of his name. We should be in for a real treat concerning the alleged revelations from heaven to ‘Maria Divine Mercy’ (MDM).

His first sentence reads:

‘The messages of Maria Divine Mercy(MDM), which she is reportedly receiving from heavenly sources, are plausible.’

Reply to Dr. Kelly Bowring

This is Tee Brown's reply to Dr. Kelly Bowring's comments on Great Battle Has Begun blog post Tee, for some reasons - technical or otherwise, was not able to comment under the article.

Dr. Kelly Bowring

Dr. Bowring is wrong on a number of points. 

His reliance on a supposed quote of Pope Urban VIII (It is better to believe than not to believe. If you believe, and it should be proven false, you will receive all blessings as if it had been true, because you believed it to be true.) is laughable as no one has ever found an actual source of this quote though it is often cited by those trying to spread bogus private revelations. And in any case, it does not matter as we are now under the 1983 Code of Canon Law which requires prior censorship as Cardinal Ratzinger made clear long ago:

"A reminder, therefore, that for the diffusion of texts of presumed private revelations, the norm of the Code in force, Canon 823, para 1, which gives